I hope that a joint effort will emerge soon to fightback on the scumware. We need this joint effort to lead!

Tomorrow is Monday and most of us will be busy during daytime with our own business. While people might expect an action plan by a joint effort. I'm keeping talking about this because I wish to see joint action emerge while the momentum is there.

BTW, Dave graciously offered his banners and buttons of the "Yellow Link Virus" to be used to spread the word. Thanks Dave.

First allow me to clarify, I did not make the banners in the link. They were made by a member of Jims forums and posted for public use. I have simply given them a second place for download, and have reminded those that use them, to not neccesarily link to AHFB but to ANY page that is in the fight. Again, the issue is bigger than any person or website, to have a personal agenda is counter-productive.

HaHa made a fantastic list of steps that need to be taken, I am hoping to get with her again this morning and do a bit of fine tuning. Once this is complete, I will email this list to all that have emailed me.

I myself took yesterday afternoon away from the computer (no...really I did) and had to have some fun time, obviously that meant shuting down the computer in my head to all things scum. This has led to a problem, one that I apologize for being a part of. In many conversations the discussion went to creating a website. I even told 1 person that I will get a domain and webspace donated. SLAP ME, we do not need another website Jim and Steve are each taking care of this. Creating a new website, is not only counter-productive to bringing people together to organize, but that also puts me in a serious breech of trust as I have been asking for help on various forums. I am not a spammer, to use Steve or Jims forums, especially since they are building thier own sites, to find people to build another competing site, would show a complete lack of respect. I was not asked to build a website, I was asked to organize the efforts and bring people together. Building a third website does not bring people together, intead it just creates another faction.

What is needed is an organized effort acting as a "Support Team" for both sites, one that will primarily research the who, what, when and why, and then report these findings to both websites, as well as those affected and those that are in violation. We need people willing to research governmental contacts for various states and countries. One of the most important issues, is screenshots, lots and lots of screenshots, these can be used not only as legal proof, but are very important when notifiying those we want as our allies.

To those that are interested in participating, in the building of a related website, I ask that you contact one of the two community leaders that have already agreed to do this.

We all have great respect for Steve and Jim, otherwise we would not be here. Together they are amongst the best when it comes to "getting the word out". Lets pull together and build a frontline like has never been seen on the internet, and let these two do what they do best, this is the way to win this thing.

I will be setting up a new section on my forum, it will be completely private and only for the members of the frontline as well as Steve and Jim or thier or thier selected representative. This will serve as the "command center" in which we can all see the wins/losses, efforts being made, and tasks that are needing to be handled, This forum section will be unbranded and not recognizable as being a part of my regular forums. It is very important to me that I give no sign of a personal agenda, and I am sure a couple of you would gladly slap me around if I do

At this point there have been a few people come forward, but not near the numbers needed to make a quick and sudden impact. If you are able to spend any time at all on this regardless if it is 8 hours a day or 1 hour a week, then you are needed! Please contact us at ahfb99@hotmail.com

I thought that it was you who made the banners. Thanks to he/she who created them and made them available.

I suggest that the effort proceed on the site that Steve donated and would be ready within the next week. And of course wish to see you Dave among those who work on the site.

And I have a wish to see the "Support Team" forum you mentioned also hosted here on geek talk or on the new site and you as part of it, of course. IMHO, the less places the effort is divided between the strongest and more effective the effort will be. But of course its up to Steve and you to decide on that.

One can start by creating the Anti-Scumware page I suggested Sunil to create, host it on the site Steve donated, using the banners and button available or text links to link to it. Its a good start.

From my own experience. The most important thing here is to create the joint effort. Once that is done, many good volunteer people will join and support.

I will do what I can, but I need to discuss with Steve. geekvillage his site, so I need to have the private conversation with him first. I am of course prepared to donate content and information.

For example, the page I have on my personal site was thrown together very quickly, for example it uses the pre-existing template and I cut'n'paste'n'modified some of the stuff from my other sites, and things I had made but not used that were sitting on my hard-disk. I have gone back and updated it a couple of times now, but it's still crude. There are now links in that page to various potentially relevant government and NGO consumer advocacy organizations

Please forgive my tiredness, but I've spent most of the last 5 days on this, and do need to address non-ezula issues too. For example ebookcompiler customers, and I have a software package to write a review on, which has been sitting unused on my computer for some time now.

On ezula, I also need to go take action on protecting my own sites which is going to be a massive and time consuming task (which I am not looking forward too). I have not even fully decided what steps to take on this. And this includes not only eZula itself, but whether to continue active involvement in Commission-Junction advertiser + publisher programs, given CJ's apparent support of eZula, as documented at www.revenews.com

There are also additional areas that I would like to devote my time on this to exploring which have not been publically discussed on any forum yet.

David:

Yes we need to coordinate and the steps you are proposing are a step in the right direction. Steve needs to make the decisions on the "official" geekvillage position, and is the only person who could do so.

I think there is also room for some diversity in views. Not everybody sees eZula, Surf+ and Gator for example in the same way. There are differences between each of the programs and how different people/organizations view each one. There are different issues relating to businesses and non-profits and how they feel about each of these. We have to accommodate this, because even though there may be differences on details, most people seem to agree on many of the broad issues.

What I am trying to say, is that it may be hard to get everybody to endorse a single set of arguments or language, even if they agree with the vast majority of them.

For example, personally I am uncomfortable about the terms "virus" or "scumware" and am trying to avoid using them in my own communications, except when placed in double quotes or when describing the name of another site which does use these words. This might sound like minutae, but it is important to some, and in this case to me.

Another example, is that there are some anti-Ezula sites which have good info on them, but I would try not to personally link to those particular ones because they include prominent casino advertising. This is just my personal hang-up.

Some people will differ with me on some/all the above. None of this means anybody has a personal agenda, but simply a case of different opinions and view points

Anyway, what I'm trying to say that this needs to be a broad-church effort, and it may be difficult to get everybody who is opposed to these programs to subscribe to the same arguments or actions or link to the same web site.

There is also the involvement of larger companies. They may not be posting, but rest assured that many are aware of this issue, and looking at what actions they can take.

Finally, I absolutely agree we need screenshots, and need to collect as much information as possible. This is a most pressing and urgent task

Thanks for your thoughts, I wish more people would get involved and voice thier opinions as well, it is after all a community effort.

Let me begin by stating that I am honored to have been nominated(though I was the second option ). If Steve requests this of me it would certainly be an honor I would entertain it. But, for all I know he could have somebody in mind.

To keep the effort moving forward, we can all still offer our research and support, hopefully in a more organized manner and in a manner in which we know there are no bases left untouched.

Regardless of which way it goes I personally do not wish to get tied up in the website aspect. I would much rather maintain the support role, either for Steve or as an independent third party that does the support work in which either website can draw from.

None of us can push either party to get a site up, building a third is counter-productive. If you have any suggestions other than building a support clearinghouse, I would be very much interested in hearing them.

Great post, I must say you covered some very valid points that have not crossed my mind, especially in the area of links.

As I stated above I do not care too much about being a part of the website aspect, I prefer to stick with the "private office" and "frontline" role. While sites are being built there is no reason to put the actual fight on pause. IMO the best thing I can do today is create the "private office" (forum category), and organize it into "departments"(sub-cats)....., so that it is easy for people to come in and see what needs to be done, what has been done and what our results have been. It could be more effective and draw the help of many more people to keep it all here, but until we know the direction our beloved community leader we must keep on keepin on....keeping in mind moving offices is not fun

Some may have read about the Surf+/Kanoodle connection. This connection has obviously thrown a new and MUCH MORE DANGEROUS threat into the situation, but this could make the fight so much easier.

Let me give a brief rundown. Surf+ is doing the same super-imposing as eZula, although much more complex. Surf+ is partnered with Kanoodle search engine, and gets the results from there. It is impossible to find out who has bought what keywords because the keywords and the links rotate without prejudice to relevence. What makes this so horrific is the fact that many gambling and "Adult" content sites use kanoodle, meaning that a word as simple as "Hello" could link to things that are not fit for those that are OVER 18. Disney is now splattered with an array of adult links.

This could be what is needed to draw IMMEDIATE attention form your legislators as well as the major corporate attorneys. We may be better off instead of spending time with minute details, just getting screenshots of corporate websites, Governmental websites, Children and family websites, throwing them on seperate and blank urls, then starting a massive mailing to these companies whos screenshots are posted.